Europe looks to bolder targets

by Bryan Walker on February 22, 2011

No doubt the New Zealand climate change minister will point out that the New Zealand’s emissions profile is different from that of the EU and that the exchanges about reduction targets that have been taking place in Europe in recent days therefore have little relevance for us. Nevertheless I have taken heart from reading about them in their own right, whether they have relevance to us or not, though I think they do have at least some.

Currently the EU has a target of a 20% cut in emissions by 2020. The Guardianreported last week that the UK’s climate change secretary Chris Huhne (pictured) wants to see that target toughened to 30%. Gunther Oettinger, the EU’s energy commissioner, disagreed on the kind of cautious grounds that we are all too familiar with in New Zealand. “If we go alone to 30%, you will only have a faster process of de-industrialisation in Europe. We need industry in Europe, and industry means CO2 emissions.”

Wrong, said Huhne. “The short-termist view of sticking to 20% doesn’t cut the mustard. Moving to 30% would give our businesses a head-start in new green industries and get us off the oil hook quicker, insulating us from oil price spikes.” Competitiveness is at stake: “Decarbonising further, faster will keep us ahead of the likes of China who are already snapping at our heels.

Connie Hedegaard, EU commissioner for climate change, while being careful not to criticise her fellow commissioner, insisted that tougher greenhouse gas targets would improve the EU’s economic performance, rather than push businesses overseas. “It’s very important that everyone understands that to produce more does not mean you have to emit more. That was 20th century business, this is the 21st-century model.”

Huhne has been gathering support for his plan to press for the higher goal, and has already won the backing of his counterparts in France, Germany, Denmark and Spain.

Interestingly and importantly, some businesses are in support. The CEO of The Climate Group Mark Kenber said:

“Now is no time for Europe’s leaders to have a crisis of confidence or present false choices. The EU businesses we work with want a 30% carbon reduction target to boost Europe’s share of the 3.5 trillion global market for low carbon goods and services. Business understands there is no such thing as a high-carbon, low cost future for them in Europe or anywhere else. Europe’s economy needs a clean industrial revolution to stay competitive, to cut emissions, and to boost growth and jobs.”

“Business leaders working with us have repeatedly said more ambitious short- and medium-term targets are essential to help drive up the carbon price and incentivise the low carbon investments needed to reach the EU’s climate goals.”

Campaigners have not been backward. Ruth Davis, chief policy adviser for Greenpeace:

“While Oettinger peddles scare stories about polluting industries fleeing to Asia, Europe’s timidity on emissions targets is more likely to result in clean-tech jobs and new industries going to China and California.”

The European Climate Forum yesterday presented a report in Brussels which describes how mitigating climate change should not be seen as a trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection. It states that post-crisis Europe can revitalise its economy by tackling the climate challenge. Raising the European climate target from 20% to 30% emissions reductions can open the way towards higher growth and increased employment. A decisive move to a 30% reduction target can be doubly beneficial: for the global climate as well as the EU economy. Chairman Carlo Jaeger discussed the issue at greater length in a Guardianarticle.

Of interest in this context was a confidential draft policy document from the European Commission which was leaked to the Guardian last week and reported by them as showing that tough action on climate change is cost-effective. The document presents a roadmap for action which would enable the EU to meet the agreed 80 to 95% reduction target by 2050. It considers that Europe is already on track for a 20% reduction by 2020 and that full and effective implementation of the energy efficiency plan is all that is required to bring that up to 25%. By 2030 the reduction level needs to be 40% of 1990 emissions. It too sees the economic positives in taking fully appropriate action to combat climate change, pointing out how the actions fit in with other desirable developments such as accelerating innovations and increasing energy security and competitiveness in key growth sectors. Standstill is not an option for the EU, as it would mean losing ground in major manufacturing sectors.

The document is only 11 pages long and easy reading for any who can spend the time. It covers the various sectors of the economy and describes how each of them will need to be shaped over coming decades to deliver the needed reductions. Renewable energy, smart grids, passive housing, carbon capture and storage, advanced industrial processes, and electrification of transport (including smart grids and energy storage technologies) are key components. The major and sustained investment required to finance them is estimated to be around 1.5% of EU GDP per annum on top of the overall current investment representing 19% of GDP. If this seems a lot, the document notes the investment levels in China (48%), India (35%) and Korea (26%) showing emerging economies’ strength in rapidly modernising their economy.

What encouraged me about all this was the reasoned optimism and let’s-get-on-with-it tone. The EU Commission’s document acknowledges that with little more than 10% of global emissions the EU can’t tackle climate change on its own. Nevertheless, it points out, the ambitious climate change plans it has been pursuing for more than a decade have been influential with other countries and brought them on board. I have been looking at our own climate change minister’s position paper on our modest 2050 reduction target in the last day or two as I try to prepare a submission on it. I miss the EU sense of resolution and conviction that the economy can prosper in a low carbon future. There are one or two acknowledgements of such a possibility, but the general air is cautious and dominated by a feeling that risk is greater than opportunity. “Setting a target is a balance between achieving the reductions in greenhouse gases we want and the impact on the economy and our lifestyle.” We won’t make sufficient progress under such motivation. But I guess one can be thankful that it’s closer to the European vision than to the fevered disorder currently obtaining among the Republican majority in the US House of Representatives.

Countries all round the world are doing similar cost analysis on global warming. Its much cheaper to get CO2 under control now than sort out the problems of food shortage and flood/drought later. Focus on coal first and replace that with alternatives and then start on oil and transport.
Its not difficult or expensive,
The consequences of ignoring the situation are disastrous.
America is not a role model to follow at the moment but when they lose their corn belt they will change almost overnight.

It is Bob. The energy density of oil, for example, is going to be rather difficult to replicate.

One thing’s for sure though, while the politicians continue to dither and drag their feet, the problem grows ever larger and the cost continues to spiral higher and higher. So much for economic analysis aye?.

Not sure what the Ring reference is about in the context of this thread,
but on foreign forums it’s safe to have a real go at him on weather issues. Contempt is far too mild a word to use…but here at the very least one can simply state that he has no understanding whatever of mathematics, statistics, logic or climatology (or for that matter, any scientific discipline). Post-analysis of his forecasting reveals laughably hopeless results – except that it’s sad that anyone takes him seriously.

The Minister of Transport has discovered that one of his roading projects, Transmission Gully, might struggle to meet standards for freshwater in the Wellington region. So he is seeking a plan change that would allow those standards to be set aside because the road is so important in the national interest.

Seems to me that this has uncomfortable parallels with the GOP agenda in the US, namely, continue promoting wasteful use of fossil fuels, and treat environmental regulations as pesky things that should be legislated away.

Public submissions due by 11 March. A very interesting opportunity to directly argue the disbenefits of more GHG emissions from our current roading policy, since, as I read it, the restrictions under the RMA on talking about emissions of GHG dont apply.

Thanks for your concern.. and.. (tongue-in-my-cheek).. perhaps enabling hot-topickers permit a a bolt-on ‘off-topic’ question or two.. Noted this morning (9.40am) as I crossed the saltwater creek bridge in SH1 a very high river level that is to say within cms of bank tops. First thought was rains, a quick reject since mere mm have been around there over the past few weeks.. Spring tides..? Well, yeah, in Spring! What then..?

Has anyone checked out a possibility of seafloor change arising from the latest sharp jolt.. with resultant onshore water displacement.?

Alternatively, though could be coincidental too, a greater ice melt or alpine water flow..?

The Australian —>
AUSTRALIA will have a carbon tax for three to five years before a full emissions trading scheme is introduced, under a blueprint for dealing with climate change agreed by a multi-party parliamentary committee.

Julia Gillard has unveiled the key principles of the government’s climate policy today, saying a fixed price would be placed on carbon pollution from July 1 next year.

She said a “smooth transition” would follow, within three to five years, to a cap-and-trade system.

The Aviator

The Aviator is Gareth's latest book -- the first in a series set in The Burning World. Cover artist Dylan Horrocks describes it as: "a light-hearted journey (by state-of-the-art airship) around a world transformed by climate change and subsequent political collapse. Rock God Evangelists, super-rich survivalists, back-to-nature primitivists, heavily armed luddites, goats with the secret of eternal youth, and a horny artificial intelligence with a taste for bluegrass and classic Hollywood films; The Aviator is a Gulliver-esque romp through a future we hope won’t come to pass."